VICTORIA JUNIOR COLLEGE JC2 PRELIMINARY EXAMINATION

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1 VICTORIA JUNIOR COLLEGE JC2 PRELIMINARY EXAMINATION General Paper 8806/2 Monday 30 August 2010 TIME: 1 hour 30 minutes INSTRUCTIONS TO CANDIDATES Write your Name and Civics Class in the spaces provided in the answer paper. Answer all questions. If you need to use extra sheets of writing paper for a question, fasten them together with the answer booklet. INFORMATION FOR CANDIDATES The number of marks is given in brackets [ ] at the end of each question. This question paper consists of 9 printed pages including this page.

2 The Rise Of The Consumer Society 1 Historians looking back at the 20 th century may well conclude that it was the century of the consumer society. What has undoubtedly had the most significant impact upon the way of life of ordinary people in industrial societies over the last century has been the mass availability of consumer goods. No aspect of everyday life has been left untouched by the arrival of the consumer society: from the dwellings we inhabit; the modes of transportation and communication we use to travel and converse with others; the foodstuffs we eat; the clothes we wear; the ways in which we spend our leisure time; indeed, the very structure of daily time itself all of these changes are not simply the outcome of scientific and technological advancements, but in fact reflect a profound and fundamental change in the way that, as societies, we organise our very means to existence. 2 Our grandparents, and if not them then certainly their parents, would without doubt have lived in a world which would have been just about as different from our own as it is possible to imagine. It would not have been simply that their material needs for food, clothing, and shelter would have been satisfied quite differently to our own, but indeed their very dreams, hopes, and aspirations, for a long and healthy life, to have healthy and successful children, would actually have been fulfilled under a very different framework of expectations. Consumer society is not just about the satisfaction of needs, but in many ways it is about the forms through which we view the world and our position within it. This is not to imply that our way is somehow an improvement over that of our grandparents; simply that the arrival of consumer society during the last one hundred years has transformed not only our material existence but also our ontology, our very being itself. 3 The buying and selling of time is the central activity of the leisure industry in a capitalist economy. This is what differentiates modern popular culture from the foik culture which preceded it. Football, for instance, developed in the 19 th century into its various modern forms out of local, traditional games, but by 1900 had become a professional sport. The players earned their living by the game, and their spectators paid for the pleasure of watching Throughout the present century, adults have berated their children for preferring to buy the products of popular culture rather than make their own entertainment. This offers a clear distinction between foik culture and popular culture: foik culture is something you make; popular culture is something you buy Among the many fundamental social changes brought by the Industrial Revolution was the way in which leisure was systematised. The factory system regulated time in a new way, making time-at-work different from time-not-working. In a sense that had not been true in preindustrial culture, time-not working became an empty period that needed to be occupied. For much of the 19 th century, leisure, which can be defined as the non-productive use of time, remained the prerogative of the propertied classes. But by the early 20 th century, the notion of leisure spread down through the social system in Europe and North America and new activities came into existence to occupy leisure time. 6 The city amusements of the Iate 19 th century were prototypes for ephemeral consumption: saloons, dance halls, pool rooms and roller-skating rinks; dime novels and illustrated papers, circuses, amusement parks, burlesque shows and professional sports; melodrama and cheap seats in the theatres and concert halls. Most spectacular of all were the great exhibitions of the second half of the 19 th century, beginning at London's Crystal Palace in 1851 and culminating in the Chicago World's Columbian Exposition in 1893 and the Paris Exhibition of These architectural extravagances, thrown up for a summer to display the new wonders of the worlds

3 of industry and commerce, were available to anyone who could pay. 7 This was not enough. By the turn of the century, industrial production had developed to the point where the economy required consumption as well as production to be managed. 19 th -century industrialists had regarded their labour-force as a necessity for production, but in the early 20 th century, it was recognised that capitalism must encourage the workers to be purchasers as well Mass advertising developed out of a need to persuade people to buy. Manufacturers merely made products, but advertisers "manufactured consumers". Advertising involved a shift in cultural values away from a Victorian Protestant ethic which demanded that production, property, and personal behaviour be controlled. It encouraged an ethic which permitted pleasure and even sensuality. Advertising came to concentrate not on describing the product it was selling, but on the emotional satisfactions that its consumption would afford its purchaser. It preached the new, "therapeutic" doctrine of 20 th century capitalism, that its citizens should seek self-realisation through the intense experiences brought about through buying products for their leisure time. 9 In 1899 the American economist Thorstein Veblen argued that "the conspicuous consumption of valuable goods" became the principal means by which members of the Leisure Class demonstrated their social standing to each other and to the rest of society. As he was describing the nature and implications of a consumer culture, American capitalism was spreading that culture, and the idea of leisure, to far larger sectors of the population. Several years later, a writer on fashion noted that as wealth or social status were the basic selling points of most clothes, "the styles should go as far as possible in proving that the owner does not have to work for a living". From the 1920s onward, the idea of stylistic obsolescence in which annual models introduce new season's fashions spread out from automobiles to other types of consumer goods as the way to maintain a constant demand, through what Charles Kettering of General Motors called "the organised creation of dissatisfaction". 10 In 1929 Christine Frederick wrote, "Consumptionism is the name given to the new doctrine; and it is admitted today to be the greatest idea that America has to give to the world; the idea that workmen and masses be looked upon not simply as workers and producers, but as consumers... Pay them more, sell them more, prosper more is the equation." This was the American Dream: an economic perpetual motion machine which made everyone appear equally prosperous. Fantastic visions of the American Dream drew immigrants, as novelist Michael Gold described in 1930, "In the window of a store that sold Singer Sewing Machines in our (Romanian) village. One picture had in it the tallest building I had ever seen. It was called a skyscraper. At the bottom of it walked the proud Americans. The men wore derby hats and had fine moustaches and gold watch chains. The women wore silks and satins, and had proud faces like queens. Not a single poor man or woman was there; everyone was rich."

4 Name: CT Group: Content /35 Language /15 Total /50 Paper 2 (50 Marks) (Note that 15 marks out of 50 will be awarded for your use of language.) Note: When a question asks for an answer IN YOUR OWN WORDS AS FAR AS POSSIBLE and you select the appropriate material from the passage for your answer, you must still use your own words to express it. Little credit can be given to answers which only copy words or phrases from the passage 1) How has the mass availability of consumer goods (lines 3-4) had an impact on the way of life in industrial society? Use your own words as far as possible. [2] 2) From paragraph 2, show how the arrival of the consumer society changed the way people perceive themselves. Use your own words as far as possible. [2] 4

5 3) What does the word managed (line 48) suggest about the way consumption is handled? [1] 4) In what way is 20 th Century capitalism therapeutic (line 57) and why does the author put inverted commas round this word? Use your own words as far as possible. [2] 5) Which two words in paragraph 8 suggest that 20 th Century capitalism is like a religion? [1] 6) How does stylistic obsolescence (line 67) work in the fashion industry? What is its role in the organised creation of dissatisfaction (line 70)? Use your own words as far as possible. [3] 5

6 7) In the passage, the author explains how the concept of leisure has changed over time and the characteristics it has taken on. Using materials from paragraphs 3 to 6, summarise his views in no more than 120 words, not counting the opening words printed below. Use your own words as far as possible. [8] The author claims that 6

7 8) Why is the American Dream described as an economic perpetual motion machine (line 75)? How does the Singer Sewing Machine advertisement illustrate this dream? Use your own words as far as possible. [3] 9) Give the meaning of each of the following words as they are used in the passage. You may write the answer in a word or short phrase. [5] i) structure (line 7) ii) berated (line 27) iii) culminating (line 43) iv) ethic (line 54) v) afford (line 56) 7

8 10) The author examines the various effects of consumerism on society. To what extent is your society reflective of the consumer culture as outlined in the passage? Do you think there is cause for concern? Refer to some of the ideas raised in the passage as well as your own knowledge and experiences. [8] 8

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